Civil & Environmental Engineering
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Dan M. FrangopolDan M. Frangopol

Position: Inaugural Fazlur R. Khan Endowed Chair of Structural Engineering and Architecture, Emeritus; Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Emeritus; Senior Research Fellow.
Education: Doctor of Applied Sciences, with the highest distinction (summa cum laude), University of Liège, Belgium, 1976; Diploma in Civil and Industrial Engineering, Institute of Civil Engineering, Bucharest, Romania, 1969.
Research Areas & Interest: Development and application of probabilistic and optimization concepts and methods to civil and marine engineering, including: structural reliability and probabilistic mechanics; life-cycle cost analysis; probability-based assessment, design, and multi-criteria life-cycle optimization of structures and infrastructure systems; structural health monitoring; life-cycle performance maintenance and management of structures and distributed infrastructure under extreme events (earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and floods); risk-based assessment and decision-making; multi-hazard risk mitigation; infrastructure sustainability and resilience to disasters; and climate change adaptation.
 
Frangopol held a position as assistant professor at the Institute of Civil Engineering in Bucharest from 1969 until 1974 when he moved to Belgium to become a Research Structural Engineer (structural reliability, analysis and design of inelastic structures, structural optimization) in the Department of Mechanics of Materials and Structural Engineering, University of Liège.
In 1977 Frangopol returned to Romania as an associate professor at the Institute of Civil Engineering in Bucharest and moved to Belgium in 1979 working as a project engineer at A. Lipski Consulting Engineers in Brussels. In March 1983 he joined the faculty of the University of Colorado at Boulder as an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering. He was promoted to full professor in 1988 and became in 2006 an emeritus professor of structural engineering and structural mechanics.
 
In 2006 he moved to Lehigh University as Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the inaugural holder of the Fazlur R. Khan Endowed Chair of Structural Engineering and Architecture. In 2025 he became the Inaugural Fazlur R. Khan Endowed Chair of Structural Engineering and Architecture, Emeritus; a Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and a Senior Research Fellow.
 
Read Dan's full profile here.

Gerard P. LennonGerry Lennon

Position: Professor Emeritus
Education: B.S., Civil Engineering, Drexel University; M.S., Ph.D., Civil Engineering, Cornell University
Research Areas & Interest: Groundwater Hydrology, Surface Water Hydraulics, Surface Water/Groundwater Interaction, Subsurface Contaminant Migration, Effectiveness of Remediation Alternatives

Gerard P. Lennon became a Professor Emeritus of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2020.

He earned his doctorate and master’s degree from Cornell University and his bachelor’s degree from Drexel University, all in civil engineering.  Dr. Lennon served as a faculty member in Lehigh’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering for 40 years, starting in 1980 including eight years as associate chairperson, four as associate dean in the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science, and three as Deputy Provost.  He has been awarded numerous awards including the Lehigh Class of 1961 Professorship, the Lehigh Junior Award for Distinguished Teaching, and the Lindback Award for Excellence in Teaching.

His academic research focuses on groundwater hydrology and surface water hydraulics, surface water/groundwater interactions, subsurface contaminant migration, effectiveness of remediation alternatives, and determination of fluid expulsion from geothermal vents in the Oregon Accretionary Prism in the Pacific Ocean, which includes his going on two of the project's 13 Alvin Submersible dives. He has  authored over 75 papers on these topics and other ones such as ABET Accreditation and teaching of design courses.   His groundwater research has been funded by five different federal and state agencies, including an NSF investigation of ocean-bottom geothermal vents in the Alvin Submarine.

As a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, he organized an International Groundwater Symposium and was an associate editor of the Hydraulics Journal.  The courses he taught included Introduction to Engineering, Water Resources Engineering, Groundwater Hydrology, Groundwater Contamination, Environmental Modeling, Transportation Engineering, and Civil Engineering Graphics.

Rick WeismanRichard N. Weisman

Position: Professor Emeritus
Education: B.S., M.S., Ph.D., Civil Engineering and Ph.D., Philosophy, Cornell University
Research Areas & Interest: Water Resources Engineering, Hydrodynamics, Evapotranspiration, Sediments, Fluid Mechanics, Coastal Processes, Coastal Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydraulic Modelling, Hydrological Modeling, Watershed Hydrology

Since retiring in January, 2017, Rick Weisman has kept busy at Lehigh in various ways. He continued his involvement in Study Abroad through the Costa Rica Winter Term course on Sustainable Development and the Lehigh in (Galway) Ireland summer program. Although those programs have been on hold through the pandemic, Rick continues helping with the Martindale Student Associates Program through assistance in trip planning and mentoring students through their research and writing. Most recently, he traveled to Alaska with 12 students and other faculty to study the economy and social issues.

On the research front, Rick was asked by some of his department colleagues to help with a PennDOT sponsored project to assess failure modes in highway embankments approaching bridges and to experiment with ways to “build back better.”

Personally, Rick has returned to all his trumpet playing activities: South Side Brass, Lehigh Philharmonic, Mariachi Montana del Sur, Lehigh Valley Pops Orchestra, and the Elm Street Big Band. He also has plently of time to enjoy my family, including his four grandchildren.